LEXX: S03E10: Battle

I’m not sure if I liked this episode. It was an episode about a battle, but to be honest the actual battle was a rather sedate affair, no blood or guts, no scenes of mass destruction, no heroism (excepting of course the heroism from Kai, but heroism from a dead geezer is a bit of a contradiction I guess). The graphics were marvellous though.

At the end of the last episode, a number of balloons were descending towards the Garden city on the Water planet where Kai, Xev, Stanley and the lovely plant, Lyekka were resting. It was night and all was quiet.

Stanley wakes, he seems disturbed by some movement. He calls out for Lyekka but she doesn’t respond. He runs off to find Kai. Xev is sleeping quietly when she is suddenly attacked, bound, gagged and taken away.

As Gondolas land firing arrows in all directions, Kai hurries to sound a gong (I’ve no idea why, but I guess that it was to summon the gardeners). Suddenly Lyekka arrives and we see that she has been shot in her lovely back by a large number of arrows. She tells a tearful Stanley that she will always be in his heart. “If you cry, you will lose the memory of our love.” She dies in his arms (awwww!).

Kai hurries Stanley and suggests that they go to get Xev and the Moth, but both are gone. They spot the Moth flying away and assume that Xev is either the pilot or that she has been captured. Kai fires his handy wrist gadget and climbs aboard with Stanley. They throw the driver overboard. Stan sees a covered package tied up in the back. He feels it to see if it is Xev. He places his hands on her ‘boob’ area and determines, quite confidently, that it is Xev. Kai pilots the Moth while Stanley unties the ropes. As he unpacks Xev he finds, to his dismay, that Xev is a bomb, a decoy with false boobs, …. a, …..a boobytrap! (sorry, couldn’t resist). Suddenly the nipples eject releasing the firing mechanism.

Kai grabs Stanley and the two fall overboard while the boobytrap blows up the poor Moth. Xev is with Prince on his Gondola. He tells Xev that Kai and Stanley are no more. He introduces his Priest, a sycophantic little weasel who dotes over the Prince. Priest spots that Kai and Stanley have managed to commandeer a Gondola. Kai shouts to Xev to see which balloon she is on. Xev shouts up to him but is soon gagged by the Priest.

Prince discusses the dilemma with Xev. He explains that Kai’s balloon is higher in the atmosphere than theirs, in fact the highest of them all, and that for Prince to gain a strategic advantage, he must make his balloon rise higher. “We need to shed some weight.” } He explains to a very nervous looking Priest.

The Priest pushes one of the crew over the side and Prince looks menacingly at another crewmember (who obediently jumps out of the gondola to his death). Prince shouts “Thank you” after them. Then he turns to Xev and says, “We need you more than we need them, you could be useful.”

Morning breaks (great graphics here!) and Stanley tells Kai that they need help if they are to rescue Xev. But Kai is more philosophical. He tells Stanley, “I have observed that the various residents upon Water, suffer from, or perhaps benefit from, a certain complacency in relation to the potential dangers that they face. They seem to live for the minute, in a kind of continuum, and will likely show no interest in our problem.” He adds that they should battle with all the other balloons on their own if they are to save Xev.

Kai also notices that the other balloons seem to be organising themselves to attack. Stanley is not too impressed with the idea and points out to Kai that he is an ex Security Guard (class four) and previously a Deputy Backup Courier. Kai retorts that Stanley Tweedle is also the captain of the most powerful weapon of destruction in the two universes and that he has been so for the past 4000 years. Stan listens to Kai’s counter argument, but I don’t think it changes his mind.

They brace themselves for the coming battle as the sun rises gloriously over the Water planet. As the balloons get nearer (but always just out of range of Kai’s handy wrist gadget) some of them take pot shots at Kai and Stanley’s balloon. They are not aiming to kill or disable Kai or Stanley, they intend to puncture the balloon and make it descend. By the way, if Kai were to fall into the water, he would sink to the bottom of the ocean – he can’t swim.

Prince tries to chat-up Xev, he clearly still fancies the ex-sex slave of B3K. Xev of course doesn’t want any part of it. He chats to her making mostly no sense at all before placing his hand on her forehead and… as if by magic, Xev is taken back in time to relive a part of her childhood. We see how she was raised in a box on B3K, a very cold and lonely upbringing. After the brief reminiscence, Xev tells Prince that she doesn‘t remember much of her childhood, but the memories she has are hard to forget.

Prince then takes her back to a later time in her childhood. She is being taught how to behave with her husband. The matron on the monitor asks the chubby adolescent Xev, “Lesson 736, your husband asks, ‘Do you think I’m fat’:
1. ‘No.’
2. ‘It’s not what you look like on the outside, but the man on the inside that counts.’
3. ‘I like a man with a lot of meat on his bones. Can we get naked now and ride the tower of power.’”

Xev unfortunately answered response number 2. Everyone of course knows that the correct answer was number three. Surprisingly there was no 4th option, “I want a divorce you fat bastard.” The young Xev is being taught that she should flatter her husband, never to notice his failings and to take every opportunity to please him in bed (a good point, nicely put).

When Xev awakes from her Prince induced recollection, she is in tears. “So much pain.” Acknowledges Prince. He tells her that she should have ‘come over’ to him when she had the opportunity. Then he asks the Priest to throw Xev over the side with a string attached to her so that he can hopefully make a deal with Kai. Kai and Stanley watch the dangling Xev as Prince tells them his terms. He gives Kai 10 seconds to jump into the sea before he cuts the rope to Xev.

Kai climbs up to jump over the side and just as he does so, the ten seconds are up and the Priest cuts the rope to Xev causing her to fall towards the sea. Kai managed to use his handy wrist gadget to clamp himself to the bottom of Stanley’s Gondola. He immediately asks that Stanley lower the balloon so that he can fish her out.

As Kai fishes the glistening Xev from the ocean, Prince turns on the Priest. He didn’t intend for Xev to fall. The Priest apologises and tells the Prince that he will not do it again (and we all got the impression that this poor sycophantic little git was going to die!).

Prince orders that his men start firing on Stanley’s Gondola. The balloon sinks quicker as they loose air. Kai asks that Stanley release the stays that hold the Gondola to the Balloon. This he does and they climb onto a small ledge on the balloon as the Gondola drops. Because there is less weight, the balloon starts to rise.

Kai notices that the LEXX is high overhead and they decide to try and make for it. Hopefully they can use Kai’s handy wrist gadget to grab hold as it passes. Unfortunately the balloon’s assent is slowing.

Prince notices that their balloon is headed for the LEXX and orders the Priest to disengage the Gondola. He does so and tries to climb up to the Balloon harness. Prince is not happy to take the Priest along on his trip. “You are dead weight. Now please fall to your death with the Gondola and don’t waste any more time about it.” He says dismissively. But a very disgruntled Priest, with nothing to loose but his life, takes out his dagger and punctures Prince in the chest. Prince, mortally wounded, falls into the Gondola.

“You fool!” he shouts (‘fool’ wouldn’t have been the word I’d have used) as the Priest ascends and the Gondola falls, “What do you think you will gain?” (A few minutes more is the obvious answer).

“What did you expect, now I will rise. Now I will control this planet.” Says the Priest with an evil glint in his eye.

The dark and dying Prince, just before he goes, manages to halt the crazy Priest by firing an arrow from a crossbow. The Priest falls to his death and rather conveniently leaves a free balloon for Kai to capture.

Kai managed to capture the balloon and rescue Stanley, but unfortunately he is not able to get Xev before she is sucked through the air tunnel that links the planets of Fire and Water. Kai and Stanley board the LEXX and collect a Moth to go and rescue Xev.

The poor gay robot head however has been patiently waiting for his dead icon to re-appear. He has composed some of his crappy love poetry (very much like the stuff he did for Xev)

“All night by the Kai, Kai,
All night by his corpse I did moan.
I dream he was tweaking my circuits
While I was tasting his bone.”

Xev flies through the air tunnel and lands on the planet Fire. 790 continues,

“All night without Kai, Kai,
I’m blue and I’m lonely and sick.
I dream of his frozen kisses
And fondling his frozen…..”

I guess the last line was meant to be lips, though why he would want to fondle the dead dude’s lip is beyond me. I mean if it was Xev I could understand, Xev has nice lips, full and silky and soft and moist…..

790 notices the flapping of Moth wings and assumes that his love has returned. But alas for the gay metal head, they departed without saying even a fond farewell. 790 shouts after him, “Kai!” it exclaims tearfully, “Come back, come back! …. I love you Kaiieeeeeee.”

Xev lands on the Fire planet without incident. She begins walking and finds a wandering Moth breeder!! “What are you doing here?” She asks with colossal understatement. “I must build more moths,” it says before dying. She touches his/it’s forehead and mutter something about once being a human being before the Divine Order changed him. Then when the Moth Breeder dies she gets up and walks away.

As she walks aimlessly along the surface before noticing that Prince is walking towards her. Prince apparently decided to go on a suicide mission to see Xev die. He has never seen someone die for the first time before and, although it meant certain death for him, he wanted to see Xev’s last moments. I guess he is used to dying and it is no big deal for him anyway.

Prince however finds that it is not quite as easy to follow Xev in the heat of Fir’s surface as he thought. He doesn’t know that Xev is part cluster lizard and certainly doesn’t appreciate her resistance to heat. She lets him into her mind to see what a Cluster Lizard is like. He pulls away laughing, “then I guess you will see me die.”

Xev strangely admits that she still feels something for Prince but all he can reply is that she shouldn’t. The heat is too much for the Dark dude and he eventually dies of heat exhaustion. Xev is unruffled she isn’t even sweating!

And there the show ends. There are only three more episodes of this season left and I guess the scene is being set for a final confrontation. Some of the graphics scenes in this episode were wonderful and maybe we should spare a moment to think about the director and cast trying to act out the story in front of green screens.

The gondola sequences were filmed in what looked like a large bucket in front of a monstrously large screen. As seen here when Brian Downey kindly posed for a photo (at the Un-Convention in Halifax 1999). The scenery was all graphically produced (except for the sandy scenes on Fire which were shot on location). What this episode lacked in storyline, it made up for with breathtaking special effects.

I would therefore rate this episode a spiffing 34,151 out of 10.

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This episode review is © 1999-2019 Tony Fawl.
Not for reproduction without the authors express permission

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